Multicolor rotary printing press



Feb. 15, 1955 w. KOCH MULTICOLOR ROTARY PRINTING PRESS Filed Feb. 7,1951 Inventor: WERNE R K06 H By W xndx. 96

AGENTS United States Patent I 2,702,002 MULTICOLOR ROTARY PRINTING PRESSWerner Koch, Offenbach am Main, Germany, assignor to Faber & SchleicherAktiengesellschaft, Offenbach amMain,Germany,afirm My invention relatesto a press of the kind in which multi-colour printing offset machinesare disposed in series.

In multi-colour printing presses, it is known to print the severalcolours by means of a train of one-colour printing machines which arecoupled by means of drums so as to form a multi-colour printing press,or to use chain grippers conveying the sheets at their tops from onemachine to the other. 0 It has also been proposed to producemulti-colour printings by means of two-colour machines, in which thesheets are conveyed at the bottom byh means of drums from one two-colourmachine to the 0 er.

All these prior art multi-colour printing machines, however, aredisadvantageous and inconvenient in use inasmuch as their overall lengthis very extensive and, thence, difiicult to survey as one printingoperation only can be controlled from one point.

In this way the machine becomes considerably shorter in length and canbe controlled much more conveniently than a machine consisting of anumber of one-colour printing presses, because the operators stand canbe so arranged as to provide ample space and a good surveyance over twoprinting mechanisms instead of only one, as has been the caseheretofore.

The invention will now be described with reference to the accompanyingdrawing, in which a train of two five-cylinder presses isdiagrammatically illustrated by way of example.

The multi-colour printing machine shown in this drawing consists of twoself-contained five-cylinder printing units which are denominated by thereferences 1 and 2 and which can easily be supervised from one side.Such supervision is possible because of the rubberor blanket cylinders 3and 4 being positioned in known manner laterally of the printingcylinder 5, so that an operator standing on the platform 6, can easilycontrol both printing mechanisms from thatplace including the upper andlower plate cylinders 13 and 14 which are in cooperation with theirinking and dampening mechanisms 15 and 16 respectively. The sheets areconveyed by chain grippers 7, below the controlling platform 6, from theprinting machine 1 to the machine 2 and by another chain gripper 7 to adelivery pile 8.

In particular, the sheets are moved from a pile 9 to be fed over afeeding table to the first five-cylinder machine 1, then by means of thechain grippers 7 below the platform 6 to the second five-cylindermachine 2 and by means of the second chain 7 below the second platform 6to the delivery pile 8 The five-cylinder machines, of course, compriseall the usual parts of a printing press such as plate cylinders,distributing and inking means, which are not particularly described.

If the machine according to the invention is to be used to producemulti-colour printings of any odd number of colours, for example,five-colour printings, one colour is printed by means of athree-cylinder machine which is preferably positioned between thefive-cylinder machine 1 and the feeding table 10. In this arrangementthe sheets are likewise conveyed from said single machine below theoperators platform to the first fivecylinder machine. Instead of using athree-cylinder machine to produce multi-colour printings of any oddnumber of colours one of the five-cylinder machines can be used as aone-colour machine, for example, if a sixcolour machine is to be usedfor the production of fivecolour printings.

The manner of using and applying the illustrative embodiment of myinvention set forth above will be clear from the foregoing description.It is, of course, to be understood that my invention is not limited tothe specific embodiment thereof here shown and described for purpose ofillustration only.

What I claim is:

In a four-colour rotary printing press, two cooperating five-cylinderprinting units each comprising a plate cylinder near the top and a platecylinder near the bottom of the said units, a blanket cylinder inoperative relation to the plate cylinder near the top and a blanketcylinder in operative relation to the plate cylinder near the bottom ineach unit, said blanket cylinders being positioned in mutually verticalrelation on the sheet-feeding end of each unit, an impression cylinderin operative relation to said blanket cylinders also on thesheet-feeding end of each unit, an operators platform in each of saidunits at the delivery end thereof, a chain gripper in the first printingunit cooperating with the impression cylinders of the first and secondunits and arranged to pass underneath the operators platform of thefirst unit, and a chain gripper cooperating with the impression cylinderin the second unit and the delivery pile at the end of the machine andarranged to pass underneath the operators platform of the second unit.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS1,849,219 Belluche Mar. 15, 1932 2,100,852 Jacobson Nov. 30, 19372,174,865 Barber Oct. 3, 1939 2,245,343 Hunting June 10, 1941 2,542,867Harrold Feb. 20, 1951 2,554,904 Harrold May 29, 1951 2,593,180 PritchardApr. 15, 1952 FOREIGN PATENTS Germany Apr. 11, 1930

